Friday, June 14, 2024 The Wanderers: Petrified Forest

For the beginning of our Southwest Tour, start here: Arches National Park

We left Sanders for the 30-minute drive to Petrified Forest National Park. We’re getting our money’s worth out of Kris’s lifetime membership card for seniors. PFNP was pretty cool – lots of painted desert stuff at the beginning (North Gate entrance) and the petrified wood towards the end (South Gate). Lots more photos and a few mini-hikes.

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We stopped at the Historic Inn and had the pleasure of getting some fun intel from the lady running the cash register. She was really a hoot – local color at its best.

She noticed me standing around looking at stuff and pointed out some tiles on the ceiling that were done in the style of Pueblo art. After giving me the background on them, she said, “But they were made in the 1930’s and have lead in them so you can’t lick them.” I thanked her for the warning and said, “I suppose when you looked at me you thought, there’s somebody whose first move after hearing about the tiles will be to jump up and try to lick them.” We had a nice chuckle over that – she had a fun sense of humor. The tiles were painted by CCC artisans, which surprised me. I had kind of thought that the CCC workers of the 1930’s were all doing basic construction jobs and grunt work.

She told us about the petroglyph of a coyote that was in the same room, pointing out that the coyote’s tail was abnormally angled over its back. Since coyotes keep their tails straight behind them when running (which this one was doing), she said her best guess as the why the tail was in that odd position was that the person making the petroglyph was trying to best utilize the space on the rock. Ha ha! That’s as good a guess as any, I suppose.

The Petrified Forest is the only park in our system of national parks that contains a section of Historic Route 66, by the way.

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When we stopped at the Puerco Pueblo and walked the short trail to see everything, I noticed that “Stay on the paved trail” signs were numerous. I told Kris, “I’m thinking about walking off the trail – do you think anyone would mind?” He got right into the spirit of things and replied, “I’m wondering when I visit you in prison if it will be an open room at a table or if you’ll be behind glass.” I answered, “I’m guessing that for the severity of the infraction, I’ll be behind glass.” That’s how we roll.

The Puerco Pueblo contained ruins from a large Pueblo compound that was probably inhabited 800-2000 years ago, so it was interesting to imagine people occupying those spaces that were just bare vestiges of the original homes. We also stopped at the “Newspaper Rock,” which contained a large fallen boulder of sandstone that had lots of petroglyphs carved into it. Very interesting! We saw small petroglyph markings in other places as well.

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We skipped the separate loop for the Blue Mesa area, figuring we could see all the blue mesas we wanted right from the road we were on. Kris posited that when we told people about our visit to the PF, someone would invariably say, “Did you take the Blue Mesa loop? It was BY FAR the best part of the park!”

Our next stop was the Jasper Forest, our first glimpse of the actual petrified wood of the petrified forest. Kris said, “When we get to the overlook, I’m going to make an announcement to the other tourists: ‘We’re all going to take a piece of petrified wood and not tell anyone else.’” He’s a fun traveling companion! We did not, however, make a secret pact with the other tourists (nor did we take any wood, I hasten to point out). More’s the pity.

Another display of petrified wood was called the Crystal Forest, a place where much of the inside matter in the wood had turned into quartz and sparkled in the sun.

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The final stop was the Rainbow Forest Museum and Gift Shop. The phrase “millions of years” was evidently required verbiage on every display.

We walked around a little loop that they had with plenty more petrified wood that you could actually touch and sit on. We did both. And took a selfie. Oh, and I spotted a little lizard that we each got nice close-ups of.

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On our way back to the car to eat lunch I spotted another little critter crawling along the sidewalk in a strange manner. I stopped and took a photo, but wasn’t quite close enough to figure out what it was.

I was thinking to myself how good I am at seeing things that others don’t see, patting myself on the proverbial back as it were. I walked slowly closer to the odd looking little critter and when I got close enough I saw that it was a scrap of black plastic from a bag that a breeze had been moving along on the sidewalk.

The good Lord always knows when I need a little humbling.

Next on our Southwest Tour: The Grand Canyon! Grand Canyon National Park

The vultures are circling this post – might not be here in the morning.